Important dates for the Firefox rapid release process

This has come up on assorted mailing lists so I figured I’d blog about it…

Please do note the rapid release process is still new and might need to be adjusted as we go through a couple.

If you are…..

A Developer

You need to focus on the fact that the next merge from mozilla-central to mozilla-aurora is 2011-05-24 (any code for Firefox 6 needs to be in by that date)

You need to know any major issues you find in code landed before 2011-04-12 should be brought to the attention of release drivers to put into beta or aurora, wherever is appropriate

A Localizer

You need to focus on the fact that you only have until 2011-05-17 to finish localizing Firefox 5 content in mozilla-aurora (time left for current work)

You need to focus on the fact that the next merge from mozilla-central to mozilla-aurora is 2011-05-24 (time the work for the next cycle starts so you can plan)

Add-on Developer

You only have until 2011-05-17 to test your add-on with Firefox 5 content in mozilla-aurora and mark your add-on as 5.0* compatible.

You will be able to test for 6 more weeks on beta but our beta audience has over 2 million people…you probably don’t want to field their support questions and should just focus on getting it compatible during the aurora timeframe.

You should start testing your add-on with Firefox 6 content in mozilla-aurora on 2011-05-24. You will have 6 weeks to test on aurora and another 6 weeks to test on beta

Anyone Else

Firefox 5 will be released on 2011-06-21

I hear there is a developer calendar somewhere and intend to add the assorted merge dates. I have also been saying it every week in the platform, MoCo, channel, and product meetings. We’re working on getting it added to the wiki in the appropriate places (thanks to Matt Brubeck for adding it on the RapidRelease wiki page).

Additionally, there are dates in the specifics document as well as a quick python program to spit out your very own merge schedule. Please note we are still working out the mechanics of merges so they may be +- a day or so.

Why is Mozilla now moving so quickly through the version numbers (e.g. Firefox 5 and Firefox 6)? Will there really be any noticeable differences to the average user between each version given the fact that there will be shorter time periods in between each version release?

We’re trying to downplay the importance of version numbers. We also don’t know what will go into each release as only the features that get finished will be included. We don’t want people to think about Firefox 5 vs Firefox 6, we want the focus to be on “Firefox” and users to always be on the latest version.